If the top-level folder didn't have an image in it, I
placed an image in the top-level folder and selected
it as "Use as folder thumbnail" without success.....

This may have to be a two-pass process.
The first pass will produce a thumbnail for the new image.
The second pass will pick up the thumbnail (which was not available in the first pass because iot had not yet been created). For the second pass you can also "Exclude" the new image if you only wanted the thumbnail.

But you can avoid this two pass process by using the thumbnail that is being used for one of the subfolders. You can select a folder to "Use as thumbnail" , just as you can an image.

The folder where I could take your second suggestion of nesting down folders to set an image as a sub-folder thumbnail, then using the higher level folder with icon as the top level thumbnail worked.......did that sentence make sense?!?!?!?

I'm attaching 2 more screen shots....it's weird....

The JAlbum image pane (attachment index.jpg) shows the folders with a thumbnail image (circled and labeled in red) while the resultant album index page (attachment page.jpg) still doesn't display the folder thumbnail.

I ran multiple passes.....but I'm not seeing the folder icon in the upper left of the image I'm selecting as the thumbnail.

The folder where I could take your second suggestion
of nesting down folders to set an image as a
sub-folder thumbnail, then using the higher level
folder with icon as the top level thumbnail
worked.......did that sentence make sense?!?!?!?

Made sense to m,e - - - but maybe only because I knew what you were talking about

I'm attaching 2 more screen shots....it's weird....

The JAlbum image pane (attachment index.jpg) shows
the folders with a thumbnail image (circled and
labeled in red) while the resultant album index page
(attachment page.jpg) still doesn't display the
folder thumbnail.

I ran multiple passes.....but I'm not seeing the
folder icon in the upper left of the image I'm
selecting as the thumbnail.

Is this using the specific (added) image rather than nested folder thumbnail(did THAT make sense?)?

I am wondering if this is due to a recent JAlbum change where subsequent remakes clear out previous output files?
Did you have "All" or "Changes" selected when you ran the second pass?
Using "All" will possibly delete the thumbnails created in the first pass, and will regenerate all the scaled down images and thumbnails.
Using "Changes" will leave the old thumbnails in place.
You can also defeat the "clearing out" behaviour by selecting "Preferences" from the "Tools" menu, and unchecking the box for 'Clean old output files on "Make all"'

I should have remembered that from earlier, shouldn't I ?
I am afraid I can't help much, It looks to me as if it should be working, but it obviously isn't.

Just clutching at straws, is it possible that this is a caching problem, that JAlbum is actually doing the right thing but your browser is looking at a cached earlier version of the page?
(Unlikely, but I can't think of anything else!!!!!)

E+1.5 is compatible with JAlbum 7.2 and above.
E+1.4 is compatible with JAlbum under 7.2.
In your case i do not think there is a problem.

In my previous albums i was using the following instructions to attach a thumbnail out of the folder (the following from http://exhibitplus.fyvie.net/userreference.php ). I do not know if it is working anymore with the news versions :

Field name: folderIcon =
Field notes: Enter the filename of one of the images in the folder to be used as a tiny thumbnail representing the folder
Field use: Optional
Field name: folderIconDirectory =
Field notes: Enter a relative path, without a trailing / or \ to a subfolder for use with the folderIcon field. This would be useful if the folder did not contain any images, and you wanted to a use an image from a subfolder instead